Greenland Expedition Food and Climbing Equipment

At first glance planning your meals for a month long expedition can be a daunting task.  Six members of our Team recently returned from an expedition to Greenland and we thought it might be interesting to share a shopping list they put together before the trip. 

Over the years we have learned that on a long expedition or even a short trip, variety of food and snacks is one of the key ingredients that helps lift the mood during down time at base camp.  The below list as a rough guide.  Hopefully it will help to make planning easier for your next adventure. 

We were lucky in Greenland to find well stocked supermarkets which is not always the case when your purchasing expedition supplies.  We had climbing specific food for around 10 – 15 days out of base camp.  The trip was around 35 days long and we estimated potentially 20 days in camp if the weather was bad.  We took approx. 10 Radix meals each with us for our dinners on climbing days.  Otherwise we purchased the rest of our food in country. Nanortalik had two good supermarkets where you will find pretty much all the food supplies you need. You can also contact them in advance of your trip to order gas for jetboils etc. 

Food and supplies on the dock in Nanortalik ready to head in to base camp

Supermarket Shopping

Quantities where possible are listed by weight or as a per person quality

Soap

Shampoo

Tooth paste

Crackers 2 packets

Candies 1 kg

Chocolate 1.5 kg 15 x 100g packets for climbing days

Biscuits 15 packets the idea was 2 nice cookies per day for an afternoon snack at base camp. Then 5-7 of those packets were digestive fruit style biscuits for bulking up climbing food.

Wraps 2 per climbing day. We had around 30 wraps for 10-15 days out of base camp

Jam 4 pots ( one per week for two people to share )

Nutella 2 jars

Peanut butter 6 pots per person we mostly used this for climbing and approach days

Honey medium sized jar just took one

Nuts mixed 2kg

Raisins 2 kg used in oats dinners and baking

Energy Bars 30 only used these for climbing days

Oats 2.5kg 80g - 100 per breakfast per person per day

Tinned fish 10

Salt pepper

Sugar 1 x kg used in baking and coffees

Olive oil 1l and other oils 1l per week used lots of oil for fish cooking and baking

2 x bottle of lemon juice , Specific for Greenland due to the fishing

Stock cubes 20 chicken / vegetable

Cucsos 1kg

Small pasta 2kg

Dehydrated potato 10 packets

Tea bag’s herbal 60 ( 2 x tea bags per person per day )

Hot coco late 1kg

Milk powder 1 kg ( good for two people for one month )

Butter 4 blocks ( 1kg )

Noodles 10 packets

Cakes 10

Plastic bags or zip lock bags 30

Large rubbish bags for stashing gear in , putting rubbish in

Tinned fruit 10 tins i.e one tin every second day based on spending 20 days of a 30 day trip at base camp

Tinned veggies peas carrots corn 7 of each i.e one tin per meal your planning to cook at base camp per night to share between 2-3 people

Eggs ? Maybe a dozen didn’t take any but they would have been nice to have at the start of the trip.

Flour, if your planning to bake 300g camp bread loaves something like 5-7kg for two people for a month is nice. We ended up doing allot of camp baking and had no problems finishing off all the flour we took.  It’s worth noting that if you plan on doing allot of baking at camp you should take some extra fuel along for your cookers.

Chips 5-10 packets

Hard cheese 2kg

Crackers 2 large packets

Hummus or chutney 2 jars  

Lighter x 4

Tin foil 2 rolls, We used this several ways, for a clean food prep surface, as a lid for our frying pan, and for baking fish / potatoes on the fire.

Zip lock bags

Herbal tea 2 x bags per day per person

Coffee 200g per person per week

Dishwashing soap

Baking powder

Baking soda

Instant yeast.  We had a small jar which was plenty for the trip.  It lost its rising ability on the final week of the trip.

From home I also took 1kg of dehy mince meat to add to dinners.  In hindsight there was plenty of options at the supermarkets so this was not really essential. 

Kitchen utensils

Light weight chopping board for food preparation

Large serving spoon

3L pot

Frying pan

Spatula

A couple of medium sized plastic bowls for preparing bread and other meals

What will you cook shelter be ? Are there rock bivy’s or will you bring a cook tent?

A couple of large shopping bags that you can hang up to help with food sorting and keeping away from rodents

Spoon & multi tool

Spare spoon

For this specific expedition as we were able to fish close to base  camp we took a fish filleting knife

Water containers for base camp.  We used 10L MSR droms

Scrubbing brush , pot scrub , tea towel

Mason posing it up with a loaf of frying pan focaccia

Greenland Tasermiut Expedition Clothing and Equipment

3 x 10l water bladders for use when climbing and at base camp

Light weight running shoes

Crampons , light alloy crampons are all you need for Tasermiut

Ice axe

Walking pole

Macpac light weight Prophet rain jacket

Macpac Nazomi rain pants

Beanie

Buff

Bug net and bug hat. We didn’t find the bugs there very bad compared to climbing in NZ

2 x shopping bags for hanging ropes in at belays  

Macpac Sun shirt

Macpac Nitro fleece

Down pants

Leather gloves for rapping in

Macpac Ascent Gloves

Fleece gloves

Travel towel

Light climbing pants

3 x socks

3 x boxers

Thin repair cord 2 m

2 x 1l bladder

Offwidth knee pads 1 thick 1 thin

Crack gloves

Alpine stick clip.  We took a light weight stick clip and used it on the crux pitch of War and Poetry

Sun block

Chalk bag

4 x medium sized dry bags

Jet boil + flint

2 spare radix packets empty

3 x small gear organising bags

Tent

Sleeping bag & Fleece liner. We found the Macpac Dragon Fly 400 to be a good weight sleeping bag for Tasermiut

Flip fuel

Cooking tarp or some kind of cooking shelter i.e BD mega mid tent

Belay seat

Crack gloves

Portaledge. We didn't find the ledges on either War and Poetry & Moby Dick very good for sleeping more than 1 person. So some kind of portaledge or G7 would be nice if your planning to spend multiple days on these routes

Harness & pas

Atc and prussic

2 x 6m cords for anchors.  With approx. 4 biners on each.

Spare cord for backing up rap anchors approx. 10m

2 x 120cm sling single biner each

6 x 60cm draw and 6 x regular quick draws

60m 9.5mm dynamic rope

60m tag line

60m 9mm static rope

Spare 60m dynamic rope. We found the rock fairly course in Tasermiut.  In between the 6 climbers on the trip we cut or ruined around 6 new routes both static and dynamic so taking a spare is fairly worthwhile.

4 single snap locks

2 x micro traxions

Chest harness for fix and follow

Gri gri

Triple rack of cams black totum to #4 Camalot , double #5 Camalot and a single #6 Camalot single green C3, double set of nuts.  A good range of RP’s are handy for one of the slap pitches on War and Poetry if your planning to climb that

Macpac Fitzroy soft shell pants

Macpac Mannering soft shell jacket

Macpac Pulsar Plus synthetic jacket

Macpac Pro thermal hoody

Food thermos handy for making simple boil in a bag style meals at base camp

2 roles finger tape

Comfy crack climbing rock shoes and a pair of tighter shoes for projecting

Aero press and filters

Finger board for some base camp training

First aid kit personal. We also had a large team base camp first aid kit.

Inreach

2 x sun glasses

Travel scale handy for weighing bags before and after the trip

Vitamins

Spare head torch battery

Rope middle mark pen. Handy if you want to re mark the mid point on any worn ropes

Blister repair pads

Eye patch essential for getting a good nights sleep with the long daylight hours

Ear plugs

Helmet

A good waterproof pair of boots is handy. I would favor comfortable leather hiking boots rather than a full on mountain boot for somewhere like Tasermiut

Light weight rod & reel we never caught anything that a small telescopic rod couldn’t handle. 

Lures google arctic charr  or sea trout lures and take a few spare ones for when you inevitably loose some.

Spare tee shirts x 2

Sun hat

Lip balm

Hand cream ( you can buy there at the supermarket )

Wash cloths x 2

Our largest catch for the trip

Fire roasted Arctic Charr and baked veg. Perhaps the best rest day dinner of the trip.